Lesego Rampolokeng

Lesego Rampolokeng, born in Soweto, South Africa, is the poet of the lost generation of apartheid. Believing that the power of the spoken word can turn into music in itself, he merged many different influences in the beginning of the '90s and thus became one of the most uncompromising artists in the newly blossoming artistical scene of South Africa during that decade. He summarizes his artistical goals as follows: 'Whether that pleases the kings and princes of this earth is absolutely of no importance to me'. In examining his influences, one can truly label Rampolokeng as an artist who easily bridges the gap between the culture on three continents: As a child, he was inspired by dithoko talking songs of the SeSotho who brought this tradition to the huge African melting pot of Soweto as street poets. Later, as a teenager, he was devouring comics and -- quite unusual for a youngster - the poems of the English romantic poet John Keats (1795-1821) and the works of William Shakespeare. North American rap á la Gil Scott-Heron, the recordings of Jamaican dub poet Linton Kwesi Johnson, the poems of William Burroughs and the poet of the Black Consciousness movement, Madingoane turned out to be the creative starter kit for a new talent at the end of the '80s. The material for his own poetry he found on the streets of Soweto: the dreariness, despair and violence of a place which had not naturally evolved but was created by ruthless economic necessity, arrogance and racist psychomania. After aborting his law studies, Lesego Rampolokeng concentrated on writing and performed his works at various political gatherings. At the end of the '80s, he also started his regular musical performances and met Vusi Mahlasela, another promising talent of the South African music scene, with whom he started a fruitful collaboration in the performance The Devil And The Saint (1990). In the same year, Rampolokeng published his first volume of poetry, Horns for Hondo and subsequently toured with the band The Kalahari Surfers, performing works from this book live. This tour made him widely known to a South African and also international audience. Since 1993, when his second poetry volume Talking Rain and his -- so far one and only - album End Beginnings were released, he has been working with many different collaborators, including an own band as well as the African Axemen, a project of Zimbabwean-born guitarist Louis Mhlanga and has become one of the most sought-after poets in readings on the stages of the world. In 1999, he released his third poetry volume Bavino Sermons. From his own statement mentioned above it is clear that Lesego Rampolokeng did not stop to be the angry voice when apartheid finally was officially abolished. He still stirs up people, and in a revealing word game, a journalist of a South African newspaper once changed Rampolokeng's musical label from "dub poet" to "dubious poet". Surely he will continue to embarass the kings and princes on this earth for some time to come.
© Frank Eisenhuth /TiVo